What if meetings didn’t have to feel like a drain, but instead became one of the most powerful tools for collaboration and career growth? In this episode, I’m joined by Rebecca Hinds, organizational behavior expert and author of Your Best Meeting Ever: Seven Principles for Designing Meetings That Get Things Done. Rebecca shares how her early years as a competitive swimmer shaped her understanding of teamwork and why putting the team first ultimately elevates individual success.
We explore the science of collaboration, what most organizations get wrong about meetings, and why so many well-intentioned efforts, including AI rollouts, fail due to human resistance rather than technical limitations. Rebecca explains the “4D rule” for deciding whether a meeting should even exist, how network science can transform career advancement, and why cognitive wandering is essential for innovation.
If you’ve ever felt frustrated by inefficient meetings, skeptical about AI at work, or unsure how to position yourself for what’s next in your career, this conversation offers both research-backed insights and practical ways to rethink how you show up for your team and for yourself.
In this week’s Work from the Inside Out podcast, learn more about:
- How Rebecca’s experience as a competitive swimmer shaped her understanding of teamwork
- Why organizations often reward individual performance over team success and why that’s a mistake
- The 4D rule for determining whether a meeting should exist
- Dropbox’s radical “Meeting Gettin’” experiment
- The hidden psychology behind meeting overload
- How network science influences career advancement
- Why weak ties (not strong ones) often lead to new opportunities
- What “cognitive wandering” is and why it fuels innovation
- Why AI initiatives fail due to human resistance, not technical limitations
- How to combine disciplines to create a unique competitive advantage
- Why designing and running effective meetings is a high-value leadership skill
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